Validating an instrument for clinical supervision using an expert panel

Use of research instruments standardised in English-speaking countries is commonplace in non-English speaking countries. This article describes technical, linguistic and conceptual issued raised in the translation and validation of an acceptable country-specific instrument. The Manchester Clinical Supervision Scale was validated for use in clinical supervision in Finland using quantitative and qualitative methods. The approach applied was triangulation. The focus of this paper, is to describe the item validation process of the scale using an expert panel (n=11) by means of the content validity index and panel interview. The process resulted in a country-specific 33-item instrument. The study indicated that content validity index and panel discussion are easy, but reliable ways of demonstrating the instrument's content validity.